Absolute (Discipline Book 1)

by P. S. Power

  Each of them was given a comfortable chair to sit in and a holo display. It was set up to project from the floor and physically had to be put in place in front of each of them, so it took several minutes. Gene didn't seem bothered by any of it, just working away at the pace that he'd chosen too. Like they had all day. Which, they really did, as far as Ben knew.

  He wouldn't have even noticed it if almost everyone else there didn't kind of hurry into everything they did, almost all the time.

  Finally, a small blue ball started to glow in front of him. The ball looked solid, of course, but the glow was a nice and cheery yellow. In all it looked playful and happy, more than anything else.

  "It needs a smiley face." The words popped out, and Gene moved off to his desk, which was beside the wall, about ten feet away. After a few moments a black line drawing appeared. Two dots and a single curved line, right on the surface of the ball. That was about as large as an apple. One that wasn't too big, really.

  "How's that?"

  "Excellent, thank you."

  "Good. All right, you each have brain scanning equipment pointed at your skulls, and most of you know the drill, but just in case, what I want you to do right now is try to meditate, but with your eyes open. That will let me get an idea of how skilled you are that way. The better you do, the bigger the ball gets. Ready?"

  There were murmurs from the others, which meant they had to go almost instantly, even if he wasn't that prepared himself. He tried though, looking at the ball like it was a stick of incense and carefully not glancing at what the others were doing. Ben tried not to. Before he could even get the thing to budge a little, Lissa had hers to about the size of a beach ball.

  Micha was behind her, but after about a minute was matching that and holding. Mags wasn't doing that well, at least. Better than him, but not like the others. Clark was too far down the line to see without turning his head.

  Trying to ignore all of that, Ben finally got the ball to expand a little. To about double what it was. Then it went right back. Over the course of an hour, well after everyone else had held theirs in the largest form for a long while, Ben managed to do about half that, and get the thing to the size of his head. For a bit.

  Gene clapped gently after that.

  "We can work from there. Now, Ben... You'll be happy to hear that everyone else is about to be on the same level that you are. What I want to try first is a solid beta brainwave pattern, with most of the focus being in the frontal lobe area. This should be easy enough. Try doing math in your head?" The words weren't patronizing, though Ben felt like a goof anyway, being the slow kid in the class like he was.

  The ball that floated there got turned to a nice green, and his smiley face winked at him, a simple math equation forming on the surface, wiping the face away. As soon as they started that, it was much easier, and while he didn't have instant success at it, no one else did either. He and Mags actually got to the largest size first however, after about ten minutes, and long as he kept thinking about math, focusing on the problems that showed up in white on the ball, it worked pretty well.

  Looking over for a bit he noticed that the others didn't have that feature. The numbers, to help them out.

  "Oh. I thought I was doing good on my own. So, I'm getting the new kid cheat sheet version?" He pointed at the numbers, which had Gene walk over to look at what he was saying.

  "Sorry? The set up is the same for everyone. What do you mean?"

  Ben actually got it before he spoke again.

  "Ah. So, the math problems that I'm seeing there are all in my head? Okay. That's probably part of the changes made then. Do you still see the smiley face there?"

  Gene nodded, seeming interested again. It was a lot keener this time, and obvious enough that the rest of them looked over and were listening. That didn't make the holo displays deflate however.

  "I do. Right there, on the blue floating ball."

  Ben shook his head a bit, and closed his eyes. When he opened them again the ball was blue, and not green. Still just as large however, which was interesting.

  "I have that back now. Thanks."

  After that, they got to try gamma brainwaves, which had him struggling again. At least at first. Then, suddenly, lines started to show up all over the place in the room. Reds, oranges and greens, with blues and purples in the mix but not that well represented. When that happened the ball suddenly exploded for him, even as the others were struggling with there's.

  What they meant wasn't clear at first, but he got bits and pieces of it after a moment of watching. The orange lines, which were bright enough to not seem see through or translucent, showed how the air was flowing in the room. There were no fans going, but there were places where the air came in far more easily. Following them back with his eyes he found them. Cracks and holes n the walls that were almost not visible.

  The red lines moved more, and seemed to be showing heat flow patterns. That part was a guess however. What the rest meant to didn't know and probably wouldn't without investigation. As he watched however, several of what he'd thought of as lines turned into blobs. When he shook his head to clear that effect, the room went back to normal, and the ball returned to the smallest size. Smiling at him.

  Doing it again wasn't that hard, though other than being an interesting show, he wasn't getting that much information from what he was seeing. It was probably about how his brain was organizing information, more than anything else. Like how his hands and other objects had seemed to glow a bit to him in the deprivation room.

  "This one. I think. We should try this for blocking things out."

  Gene looked interested at that, but didn't ask why, since Clark managed to get his ball to grow a bit just then. After a while they all managed something as far as that went. Clark was doing the best at it however, with Lissa being the worst.

  Their instructor for the day waved at Micha, the small tan woman smiling a bit, like she was happy, but tired.

  "Can you get out of range and try holding that? I don't have a portable scan unit here, but we can get some in."

  She hopped up, her face seeming just a bit frenetic. Like it was all she could do to stay even a little bit still. Micha didn't run from the room, but she moved fast, and after about ten minutes came back in, as everyone waited. Most of them thinking that it wouldn't have worked.

  "It..." She glanced at the others and then spread her hands. "It isn't perfect, but it really did blunt things for me. A lot. It also takes constant engagement, but I bet we can use this, if we all get it down?"

  The news seemed to energize Gene, who got on the phone, using the unit on his desk, and started speaking to someone that only he could hear. After a moment, the man stood up.

  "Great. I need five EEG scan units. Portable ones? Right. I don't know, but Micha seems to be hesitantly pleased by her results? Thanks, Kyle."

  With a wave the line was cut, and there was more clapping.

  "Excellent. It will most likely take constant work to block things out that way, even after it's mastered, but that will give us a back up, in case Ben goes down, due to his changes. I'll drop the units off later, when they get in. That might take a few days, since we have to send out for them. On the nice side, no one screamed about the expenditure yet. Then we don't need top of the line tech for this. Just good enough to let you all know what's going on. Do you think you can do that on your own, Ben?"

  He knew it, since the effect he saw was pretty clear when it happened.

  "Sure. I'm... Seeing things. When I do that? Lines and blobs in the room. It's pretty impressive."

  Gene seemed to actually make a note of that, but didn't ask for more information about it. Not yet. Mainly because Mags stood up and glared at them. Her hands were on her thin hips, and her black eyes raked over first him and then the powerfully built short man.

  "By Ben going down you mean what, exactly?"

  It was easy to tell that she was actually worked up by the information, since she didn't put in the obv
ious innuendo. Ben felt tempted to do it himself, but refrained, since the issue was him possibly dying. Instead he let his head tilt to one side, then stood up and stretched.

  "They did a lot of stuff to me. The people here don't know if it's survivable, being mixed up like it is. All in one person? So far the big differences seem to be in how my thoughts are organized and the null effect thing. There could be more. It's..." He nearly didn't say it, since Micha and Lissa looked actually scared to hear the news already. "Probably about fifty-fifty? For the living and dying part of things. I could also end up insane, and... I really see that one now. It isn't that unpleasant so far, so who knows? That's why you all need to use this time and learn to stop things on your own. Though, to be honest, other than feeling sore as fuck, I'm not doing too bad right now." Standing on his left foot he moved his right leg at the knee.

  It really was sore still.

  The room was silent, for an uncomfortably long time, until Gene clapped again.

  "We don't have to stand around here right now. You can all come and practice later? I'll leave the place unlocked. You should come and use the place to work on meditation Ben. You kind of sucked at that part. The rest were a lot better for you, so there is that." The others didn't get the gentle ribbing the man was dishing out. They all just seemed somber.

  There was nothing that he could tell them however. He either lived or died. If he didn't make it, well, this would give them a chance to have a better life. In a way, it meant that he was doing at least a little bit by being there. It should count. True that didn't get the government to fix itself or be taken down, but it was better than him just being there to give them false hope for a few weeks.

  When they got outside, Lissa clung to him, like that would keep him from drifting away.

  "Damn it. You can't die. You know that right? I don't just mean because you're making our lives easier, either. You just got here, and it would be a waste of... Everything. So don't do that."

  Funnily enough, Mags snorted.

  "Oh, sure, blame the dummy that signed up for the treatments without even getting his briefing. Not that it really would have helped, but this is probably out of his hands. We can deal. We'll get this thing going on, and hope that you don't take a dirt nap. I can't see what else to do, can you?"

  The thing there was that he really couldn't. Not that would help.

  "Worrying won't fix this, so, I was thinking that I should read you all and find out your secrets. Like how you all have VR in your rooms, which is cruelly being kept away from me by Glenda? I'm right aren't I?"

  Micha struggled for a bit, her face working through a half dozen different emotions.

  "Nooo. If you want to go into virt, you need to go to green five. That's the recreation center. We also have a little holo theater. We should go and watch something later. I have some shows to catch up on. You all love 'Chibi Girls' don't you?" That seemed to be a joke, if only a poor attempt at one.

  After all, the show was meant for very little kids, and most adults found it incredibly annoying. It was the nonsensical language they used combined with the high pitched baby voices of the characters. It was clear that both Mags and Clark had no clue what it was however.

  That was probably because they were old.

  That got him to stop.

  "You know, how old are you all? I'm twenty-two, myself. Everyone here can look different though, so..."

  Mags moved in and patted his back.

  "Old, compared to you. I'm thirty-two. Even if I do look a bit younger than that. Micha is, what, twenty-five?"

  "Twenty-six." She still looked like she could walk into a high school, as a student, and pass herself off with no trouble. No older than his actual age at the outside.

  Ben couldn't manage that, he didn't think.

  Clark simply shrugged.

  "Fifty-four. I'm the old man here."

  Lissa looked around and squeezed Ben's hand a little bit. Then she sighed.

  "Forty-three. I think I've been here the longest though? Actually, I know it, since I was Clark's mentor, when he first got here, nine years ago. The others, the psychics, that were here then are all gone now. I know that they, the corporation, tried to change the telepathic portion of things each time, but it's a stupid plan."

  Ben was about to ask about that, since the idea of a business being involved had been mentioned several times now, but Clark broke in first.

  "Hush. We're in public." Then he looked around like there might just be a spy under every window. Which wasn't that far off, since Kent came walking along, wearing his normal gray outfit, with a red armband on his left sleeve.

  Seeing them, the man waved.

  "Hey! You're all looking good. Great in fact. I don't normally see you psychic types out and about like this. Helping the new kid fit in?" He glanced at Lissa's hand, and seemed to be a bit jealous. Now that the lines had faded from around her mouth she was probably the best looking of all of them. Plus, she'd bothered to put on some makeup, which was cheating, but also worked.

  Ben hadn't, since doing that would be without any real world effect in his case. At least yet. Maybe later, after his chin had filled out it could be worthwhile. That would be interesting to see if it actually did make him any better looking.

  Mags shook her head.

  "No. We're all dating? Well, I don't know if Clark is in on that yet, but the rest of us? We're getting a house together. It's mainly based on sex so far, but you know, things tend to grow when you let them." She grinned then, but not like she was kidding, and Micha giggled a bit, then shook her head.

  "Okay, I said that I'd give it a try, not that I was totally in yet. Group things always sound so awkward. Anyway, Kent... How are you doing?"

  She spoke like she knew the man, and for that matter, so had Mags. It made sense, but the easy banter seemed more friendly than he would have expected with the spy. Of course, if they went around treating the spies like they had gross skin pustules, it might be a little easy to guess they were on to them. Ben tried to force a smile and not stick the top of his high end running slipper into the man's nut sack. The thing that really stopped him was the knowledge that doing it right then would make him hurt nearly as bad as the other guy. Even if he didn't fight back.

  He wanted to just walk away, but Kent seemed to have an agenda. It would have been nice, at that moment, to get some distance from the jerk that had set him up for all that pain in jail. The guy knew he was one of the psychics and everything, so should have gotten that they didn't like being around people all the time if nothing else. So he either didn't believe that part had merit, since most people thought psychic things weren't real, or the fellow had figured that nothing would have kicked in for Ben yet.

  That really was the way things normally happened, so it honestly could have been either of those things. In that case Kent was only guilty of setting people up in order to try and make himself look better to his bosses. Thankfully it didn't work that well. As far as Ben knew, he was the only one that suffered that much from it. The other guy that had been taken in, Mitch, was just using that to ensure his cover was strong enough.

  The guard, a position that they probably didn't really need most of the time, leaned in. Ben wanted to assume it was creepy, but it just seemed normal. Like he was chatting with real friends.

  "I heard that we might be planning to take out the central processing hub in Utah? Have any of you been clued in on that?"

  No one had, of course. Ben hadn't even known there were plans to do anything real yet. Even he knew that most of the web traffic for North America passed through Cenprohub, however. It was a thing they all learned about in school. In the fifth grade, in his case. Thinking about it was different this time, even though the rest of the world fell away. He actually had a lot more data on the place than he would have figured. It was all there in his head. The shots of the outside of the place from virt shows and games, the map that had been part of his school lessons in the fifth grade, and a lot of w
ritten material.

  All of it tried to cram into his mind at once, making him want to gasp. He broke free of the thought, and Kent didn't seem to notice that anything had happened.

  "Yeah. It seems like someone out in the field is about to be compromised so we need to buy some time for them to get away. I think Glenda was feeling me out to go. I guess I do have the skills. The trick will be getting in and having a way to damage the computers. Then getting out." The way he was speaking indicated that he thought his plan was keen and tactical, while it was pretty much a description of anything.

  Even going to the store was about the same. The trick really was getting in, then instead of damaging anything, then you shopped, and had to get out. The man wasn't wrong, but if it was as easy as walking through the front gate, then the place would have been attacked daily by crazies from all over the world. A lot of people hated the web, and all it represented.

  Sexual freedom, free speech, or what was left of it in the world, and things like that. All that boring junk that most people didn't really care about. Until it was taken away.

  Then there would be quiet grousing, done mainly online.

  "What?" Ben was honestly baffled, at least at first. "Agents? Plus, who would hurt my central hub like that? That's what keeps the web going. I... Is this some kind of bad joke? I just found out about the rec center two minutes ago." He smiled then and furrowed his brow at the same time.

  Oddly enough it was Lissa who agreed with him.

  "Is this some kind of exercise? I know that Glenda can get a little into her games sometimes. Don't get sucked in, if you want my advice on the matter. I know it might not seem like it, but doing violent things too often, even in simulations, can lead to thinking that kind of thing is a real answer to problems. It isn't."

  Kent looked annoyed, though was hiding it pretty well. His body was tense however, and he was clenching his jaw enough that Ben shook his head at it. Then realized he needed to cover that a bit.